Is it difficult to build a website? Well no! At least, not if you opt for an easy content management system like WordPress.
Tip 01: What is WordPress?
Chances are you've heard of WordPress. It is one of the most well-known and loved platforms for creating a website. WordPress is a so-called cms, which stands for content management system. It is open source, which means that anyone can use it for free, both for personal and commercial purposes. In the beginning, the system was mainly aimed at bloggers, but this is no longer the case. Nowadays you can, for example, use it to create your own webshop, design a site for your business or restaurant or promote what you stand for as a designer or photographer. There are two versions of WordPress: WordPress.com and WordPress.org. The first is a commercial version of WordPress, here you can build a simple website on the servers of parent company Automattic, you pay a certain amount per month. However, we focus on WordPress.org, you can host this version yourself with a host of your choice. This offers many advantages: you can choose a provider yourself, you can install themes and plug-ins and completely customize the website. You can read more information at //nl.wordpress.org.
Tip 02: Web Host
Before downloading WordPress, you need to choose a web host. For this article we use SoHosted, a Dutch hosting company, but you can of course use any other host. The steps related to the installation may therefore differ. You need two things from a web host: a domain name and space on their servers where you will put your website. Most hosting providers offer a combination package for this. The first step is to investigate whether the desired domain name is still available. The costs of a domain name per year are often the same with the different hosting providers. There is, however, a difference in the type of domain name: for .com you pay about 12 euros per year, for a .audio, .auto or .hosting domain you can lose hundreds to thousands of euros per year. After choosing the domain and name, click on Register and choose which hosting package you want to purchase with your domain name. The prices for the hosting package are shown per month, often about 5 to 10 euros, depending on the provider and the services offered. Importantly, the web hosting supports MySQL databases, you can set up multiple email accounts there, it offers SSL support and you get unlimited data traffic (or at least many gigabytes). How much server space you are allowed to use is also important. For a small website, 5 to 10 gigabytes is more than enough, only if you plan to upload a lot of audio or video files to your website, you will need more gigabytes.
You need two things from a web host: a domain name and space on their server Tip 03: Preparations
When you have ordered everything, you will receive all the details from your hosting provider within a few hours. This concerns the account details of the hosting provider so that you can create new email addresses or install WordPress automatically, and a username and password for the ftp server so that you can upload files from your PC to your web server. If your web host can automatically install WordPress for you on the server, you will also receive the access codes for this, along with a username and password of the MySQL database used. Each and every one of these is data that you must store properly! The backend of a website at SoHosted is provided by Plesk, this is an environment from which you can set all kinds of things about your new website. You can find this at My services / / Web hostingto manage. click on Open Plesk. Click on the bottom left WordPress and choose your to install to automatically install WordPress. Using a different hosting provider may look completely different, especially if the host doesn't use Plesk.
Install manually
If your web host doesn't offer automatic WordPress installation, take a look.
Tip 04: Install
Plesk has automatically created a WordPress user and password. To view the password, go to Websites & Domains / WordPress / Installations and click below Admission info on Institutions before signing up. rear Current password click on To show. Now that WordPress is installed, you can login to your site for the first time. Go to www./wp-login.php and log in with your account details. If all is well, you will now arrive at the Dashboard, this is the page from which you will set up almost everything for your website. To change the language to Dutch, go to Settings / General / Site Language. click on Save changes. It is advisable to change some other things there as well, such as the time and date format, the time zone and the e-mail address. rear Site title enter the name of your website, at Subtitle you can enter a subtitle. To set what information is displayed in the Dashboard, click on the left on Dashboard and then at the top Display settings. To view your site, click on the name of your website at the top left.
Tip 05: Search theme
Of course you want your site to have a personal touch. You can do that very easily by installing a theme. By default, WordPress has a theme installed that you can use right away. If you prefer a different theme, you have to add it yourself. You can install a free theme by visiting Display / Themes on Add new theme to click. With every theme you can click Example click to see what the theme looks like. If you have special needs for your website, you will probably have to switch to a paid theme. That will cost you about 40 to 50 euros once. The best and most themes can be found here. Make sure a theme gets good reviews and has been updated recently. After payment with your credit card or PayPal account you can download your theme as a zip file. In WordPress now click on . at the top Upload theme and select the zip file. You can install as many themes as you want, your site's theme won't change until you click Activate clicks. For this workshop we have chosen the free theme Customizr.
You can easily give your website a personal touch by applying a theme to it Child theme
Almost all paid themes contain a child theme in addition to a normal theme. The function of this is that you can make advanced customizations in the child theme that are not included in a theme update. You don't need to use a child theme if you just make adjustments in the Customizer.
